


Beloved Friend

by YesBothWays



Series: Love is a Quest [3]
Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Greek myth - Freeform, Poetry, otp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3775936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a poem from Gabrielle's perspective</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beloved Friend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bittergreens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittergreens/gifts).



I thought I was in love with you then.

            I am now.

Who was she? That girl – the one with a mind

            Like an imprint of my own

made as from smoke always rising against a thin

            white veil in the temple

of some humble village's domestic gods?

 

You say I have a gift in that I always knew

            myself.

I agree that I always had

            my self.

But I did not know her, not then.

 

She touched her lips to someone else's

            and said: This is pleasure.

I touched my lips to yours much later

            and said: I can feel it now.

I did not say it to you, as you could read my body

            easily as anyone's.

I said it to the girl I had been. The one I have always

            and never been.

Making friends with the enemies of the past,

            that is my wisdom.

That is my vision that sends its light out

            across the world.

This has drawn you to me again and again. 

 

I find it hard, however, to remember to look back

            as I quest onward,

To see a girl in shirts too long for legs

            so strong and set in stride,

And call her on after me, then put my arm

            about her shoulders

That feel to me so narrow after touching only and

           so many shapes

of strong women carved by the will of

            their own discipline.

She might look at me as I did at you back then. 

 

I must remember to call her by

            my own true name,

And also to call her

 _Beloved_ and _friend_.

Even as you always did,

            My beloved one, my friend.

In this circle around a fire we call our home is 

            a safe place

For every self: past, present, and future.  

**Author's Note:**

> I feel disloyal to my OTP and my home fandom. I've been writing this long Cartinelli story. So I am trying some poems out for the first time ever. I figure some of you love this OTP so much, you might love some only somewhat skilled poems about them!


End file.
